Ensure that all links to your site pull their weight.
Backlinks are a critical component of top search engine results.
They’re an indicator of trust, authority, and relevance. However, not all backlinks benefit your site; those from spammy sites with poor domain reputation, with broken links, or backlinks with poorly chosen anchor text can all undermine your SEO efforts.
Convert Digital specialises in comprehensive backlink audits that enhance your site’s performance by identifying and eliminating harmful backlinks while strategically building beneficial ones.
A robust backlink profile, comprising the complete collection of links to your webpages, has always been an important factor for Google and other search engines when determining search result rankings. Links from well-known and reputable pages not only indicate that your site is trustworthy but also underscore your authority and relevance for certain keywords.
As the significance of backlinks became recognised, some began to exploit them by having links to their sites hosted by shady and spammy sites called link farms or by having links hosted by private blog networks (PBNs) to artificially boost their link profile.
While Google’s Penguins update largely managed to put a stop to this deceptive practice, low-effort link-building strategies from less-than-reputable SEO agents or spammers trying to make a quick buck might result in links to your page that penalise instead of boost your site, and, unless you’re experienced in using SEO tools, the odds are you wouldn’t even realise it. Having a multitude of links to your site or pages from low-quality or spammy sites might lead to a Google Penalty that could result in a dramatic drop in rankings, leads, and ultimately, turnover.
At Convert Digital, we understand that the quality of your results is directly tied to the quality of the data we gather. We exclusively use industry-leading SEO tools and software to ensure that we get an accurate and representative picture of your backlink profile. This approach guarantees that no link pointing to your site goes unnoticed, ensuring a complete and detailed record.
Beyond examining your banklink profile, our audit services include a close inspection of your competition’s and industry leaders’ backlink profiles. Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and the Google Search Console allow us to determine what types of links from which sources are contributing to their success, and this, in turn, allows us to help you develop link-building strategies based on proven success.
Determining whether or not a link is harmful, beneficial, or simply doesn’t affect your ratings (at that point in time) isn’t always as straightforward as it might seem. Convert Digital manually reviews every single link, often numbering in the hundreds or even thousands, for a number of factors like the domain type hosting the link, the link’s nature, and the traffic levels of the host site, among others.
This manual approach to link analysis allows us to make informed decisions on how to deal with each link, as opposed to an automated process. We might decide to immediately disavow the link by submitting a disavow list to Google directly, place it on a watchlist to see how it performs at a later stage, contact the link host to change the anchor text if that would help from an SEO point of view, or fix/redirect broken links that would otherwise be beneficial. This tailored strategy ensures that every link is optimally managed to benefit your SEO effort.
A common occurence when evaluating links is finding links to your site from pages with poor domain authority or page traffic. While one might easily jump to the conclusion that all of these links could have a harmful effect on your site’s performance, this isn’t always the case. It could be that the linking site is still new and developing, but isn’t hosting spammy or irrelevant content. In this case, the better option is to monitor the link for changes. If the hosting domain continues to increase its authority, these links could provide SEO value down the line.
It’s also possible that a site with good authority and traffic has linked to yours using the wrong type of link or anchor text. While this could harm your site, direct communication with the host explaining the situation might quickly turn the links into a win for you. Remember, they linked to your site with the goal of providing value to their visitors. If you disavow them, they lose that benefit. If they fix the links and anchor text, it’s a win-win situation.
Missing or broken links result in the all-too-familiar error 404. This happens as a result of site upgrades or development, and both creates a unpleasant user experience and can affect your SEO rankings. In these cases, it could prove beneficial to contact the hosting site to update the link URLs for the same reason as mentioned above.
Some links simply aren’t worth keeping! When they’re hosted on sites that Google has flagged for spam, you unfortunately get punished in the rankings. Additionally, the reality of the matter is that the more prominent and successful your site is, the more likely it becomes that these spam sites will pick up yours and link to it. This makes checking your links an important part of your regular SEO efforts, not something that’s done once and forgotten about.
After we’ve determined that a link isn’t worth keeping due to spammy or irregular content, poor domain authority, or zero to a few page visits, we put that link and other relevant information into a disavow file and submit it to Google directly through their Search Console. This informs Google that your site has no affiliation with the hosting site and that you do not endorse their links. Any penalties you site has incurred due to these links are resolved almost instantly, and you should soon see an increase in page rankings and leads.
Domain Authority Score
Page Authority Score
Source Domain
Source URL
Source Page Title
Target URL
Anchor
Anchor Type
Link Type
Follow/No Follow
Toxic Score
Link detox and disavow document
The site’s domain authority
The site’s domain rating
Unique referring domains
Total links
TLD Type
Link Type (Directory, blog post, article, press release, blog comment, authority, trusted links)
Target link URL
Anchor Text Distribution
Follow or No Follow
Whether the link is live
Response codes (200, 301, 302, 404, 500)
Link detox and disavow document
Competitor Analysis
The site’s domain authority
The site’s domain rating
Unique referring domains
Total links
Site and content relevancy
The domain’s age
TLD Type
The IP address
The hosted location
Link Type (Directory, blog post, article, press release, blog comment, authority, trusted links)
Target link URL
Anchor Text Distribution
Follow or No Follow
Whether the link is live
Response codes (200, 301, 302, 404, 500)
Link detox and disavow document
Specialist equipment for construction, maintenance, and service trades. Based in Romsey, UK.
Convert Digital assisted Sunrise Tools in disavowing a multitude of harmful links from spammy websites in their industry.
Restaurant chain operating in highly competitive markets in London, Brighton, and Leeds.
Convert Digital helped MEATliquor regain previous ratings by restoring broken links after a comprehensive site rebuild.
Reach out for a comprehensive discussion about your business needs. Our SEO consultants are ready to schedule a call to gain an in-depth understanding of your business, industry, and specific SEO requirements.
This complimentary call takes a client-first approach, ensuring we recommend only relevant and impactful services.
Using advanced, industry-grade SEO tools and software, we conduct a detailed analysis of all backlinks pointed at your site.
Our process includes a thorough examination of backlink profiles from your competitors and industry leaders, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of what works in your industry.
Our team meticulously reviews and categorises each link directed at your site. We apply strict criteria that are tailored to your industry and competitive environment to ensure that the right corrective action can be taken.
Links are systematically classified as either fix, develop, monitor, or disavow.
We take decisive action to optimise your backlink profile, collaborating directly with domain owners and utilising the Google Search Console when necessary. This ensures that every link to your site provides the maximum benefit, free from risk or drawback.
Your detailed report will clearly indicate our corrective actions taken as well as highlight your gains in rankings.
By identifying and removing harmful backlinks, a backlink audit can boost your website's ranking on search engines.
A backlink audit helps in building a profile of high-quality, relevant links, which can increase your site's authority and credibility.
It helps in identifying and disavowing toxic or spammy links, reducing the risk of penalties from search engines.
Analysing your competitors' backlink profiles can provide valuable insights into their strategies, helping you to refine your own.
Insights from a backlink audit can inform and enhance your overall SEO strategy, leading to increased organic traffic.
Optimised backlinks drive more traffic to your site, leading to increased sales and revenue.
A: Backlink audits allow your SEO provider to signal to search engines like Google that other websites consider your content valuable, relevant, and trustworthy. A backlink audit ensures that your backlinks are of high quality and drive traffic to your site, while at the same time identifying poor-quality links that might harm your online visibility.
A. Convert Digital recommends conducting a backlink audit at least once a year, especially for sites with good domain authority. As your online presence grows, so will your exposure to low-quality links that harm your business. Large businesses or those who derive their income entirely through online sales should consider twice-a-year audits, or even quarterly.
A: Yes, if your site has been penalised due to low-quality of spammy backlinks. While it won’t resolve every single penalty you’ve received, disavowing certain links indicates to Google that your SEO activities are conducted in good faith and that you aren’t trying to fool their algorithms using spammy techniques or third parties.
A: This depends on the size of your website and the number of backlinks. For small to medium-sized businesses, the entire process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and up to a month for huge sites with many thousands of links to their pages. Remember that link evaluation is a manual process.
A: While this certainly is possible, provided you have access to pro SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and the GSC; it does take some expert knowledge to get it right. These tools can be difficult to use and understand, and differentiating between beneficial, neutral, or harmful links even more so.
Our team of experts is on standby to help you restore page rankings, improve organic traffic flow to your site, and boost leads and conversions to new levels.
Founder
Technical SEO Specialist
At Convert Digital, our expert Digital Marketing Consultants are ready to dedicate themselves to your project. Our enthusiastic team get started before our first meeting – undertaking initial analysis of your current SEO prior to our first call. This helps identify immediately if there are any major threats that your online store is facing and allows our consultants to gauge your current level of SEO visibility.
After our initial research, we can arrange a video call to discuss your needs. If you prefer to speak with us today, you can just call instead!
Simply fill in your details below, call 07907 674084 or email info@convertdigital.co.uk to arrange your free SEO review.
